


Leave The Dust Behind

by LydiaArgent



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3553094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaArgent/pseuds/LydiaArgent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of stand-alone South/CT ficlets, because us ladies gotta stick together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt: Starvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Starvation

“CT, where the fuck are we going?”

Their strides matched as South and CT walked through yet another unfamiliar corridor of the MOI.

“It’s a surprise.” CT, who’d been so serious these days, actually sounded like she might laugh. She was laughing at South, which was annoying, like being led by the elbow through hallways she hadn’t even known existed was annoying. But hearing CT sound almost like the snarky shit she’d been when she first came on the project was weirdly reassuring. It made South feel calmer than she’d been since Tex had appeared out of whatever circle of hell and everything started going to shit. So did the warm weight of CT’s bare hand on her forearm.

“I hate surprises. Especially when they make me miss dinner.”

CT hip checked South, and for anyone else that would’ve been met with a slap upside the head. “Stop whining, you big baby.”

“CT, I’m fucking starving!”

“Calm down, we’re almost there.”

The ship was enormous, but soldiers and agents usually stuck to their unofficially assigned areas surrounding the training hall and med bay. South hadn’t given much thought to weapons design or neuro research or whatever the nerds got up to, so she was pretty fucking surprised when they turned a corner into a goddamn five-star wing.

“And where the hell is ‘there,’ exactly?”

“I’m not going to say it again.”

“Ugh, I know, it’s a goddamn surprise— holy fucking cocksucking shit.”

South kind of lost any kind of words after that. CT had steered her sharply into what was normally a lounge, judging by the couches and end tables pushed against the walls, one with a huge glass wall looking out into star-speckled space. The furniture was shoved out of the way to make room for a blanket, a plaid fucking blanket, laid out on the floor. South stayed dumbstruck in the doorway while CT opened a cooler on the floor and starts pulling out containers of food.

“I’m taking all of that as a compliment. Are you going to sit down or what?”

“How the fuck did you find out about this place? And how did you make it deserted? CT,” South said with growing foreboding, “why is this whole wing empty?”

CT shrugged, smiled blandly, and made a pointed gesture to the empty half of the blanket.

“You’re so fucking cryptic,” South said warmly, and sat down close to CT. “I’m not even gonna bother asking why you did this.”

“Do you like it?”

South looked from the field of stars stretched out in front of her, to CT’s increasingly worried face, to the huge sandwich CT was holding out to her.

“I like that you learned you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a stove.” She took the plate from CT, who was smiling her small, real smile now. “Yeah. Yeah, I like it.”


	2. Prompt: Teamwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Teamwork

“This is suicide.”

“Don’t be such a goddamn wimp, York.”

York is backed up against the lounge couch, arms crossed against South’s undying scorn. “For once, I’m being completely serious – do not try to prank 479er.”

South lets out a judgmental huff. “She shouldn’t be off the hook just because she’s your girlfriend’s girlfriend.”

“That has almost completely nothing to do with it!” York tries and fails to sound offended, then throws his hands up. “Okay, that probably has a lot to do with it, but it also doesn’t change the fact that she. Will. Kill. You.”

“You don’t mess with your pilot, South,” North adds, uninvited and too-reasonable, tipping his head back over the couch. York points down at him and nods furiously, and South turns her sneer up a notch.

“We mess with each other all the time! She’s a member of this stupid, godforsaken team, whether she’ll ever admit it or not.”

North blinked. “That was actually kind of sw—”

“Ugh, don’t you fucking start with me. I just want to stick Hello Kitty stickers all over her armor or some stupid shit, we’re not making up a secret best friend handshake.”

North rolls his eyes, and York reiterates, “She’s going to kick your ass.”

“She’s right; you’re all complete wimps. I’ll help.” CT uncurls herself from an armchair in the corner and turns off her data pad. “But only if we think of something better than Hello Kitty stickers.”

North and York let out synchronized groans, but CT just smirks and flicks her bangs out of her eyes.

South links CT’s arm in hers and pulls her out the door. “Together? We’re gonna think of something awesome.”


	3. New Years I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Person A and Person B are in different timezones but still manage to spend New Year’s together

“Am I clear?”

“It doesn’t look like you’re being followed, but I wouldn’t throw a party yet.”

CT walked quickly along the sidewalk, moving with the flow of people, taking whatever turn seemed like it might lead her away from the security guards that had been chasing her.

“I’m not dead, South’s not dead, sounds like it’s time for a party to me.”

“Yeah, well, if someone,” Niner says sharply, “hadn’t opened fire, maybe they wouldn’t be tracking everything coming out of the sky right now.”

CT hears South on the other end of the com line, saying “Give me a fucking break, we got made, those f—”

“Anyway,” Niner cuts her off pointedly, “looks like I’m stuck above atmo for the foreseeable future.”

Not slowing her pace, CT pulls up a map of the city on her HUD and changes course at the next intersection. “Seriously? You?”

“You can keep that lip to yourself,” Niner scolds. “ I’ve outrun better anti-aircraft than these cavemen have, but orders are in from command to return to base and wait it out.”

“Fucking bullshit,” CT hears faintly, before “Get out of the goddamn cockpit!” in reply.

It’s totally reasonable that Command wouldn’t want to risk a ship, pilot, and two of its agents betting on Niner’s ability to haul their collective asses out of any situation. It’s also possible that this is a test. Well, of course it’s a test, CT thinks wryly, everything was. But she isn’t sure what kind of test this one is, and she isn’t going to head to her drop point until she knows.

She listens with growing amusement to the swearing and commotion coming from the cockpit.

“This is shit,” South’s somewhat breathless voice comes through the line. “It’s fucking new year’s eve.”

CT pauses in her stride, barely a stutter at the realization that somehow, except she knew exactly how, she’d totally forgotten.

“Oh,” she says, and could kick herself.

“Fuckin’ right, ‘oh,’ it’s not new year’s if I’m not carrying your puking ass back to your bunk,” South grumbles.

“That was one time,” CT says reflexively, and “God damnit. That’s that record broken.”

“Guess so. We shouldn’t have split up,” South says, voice suddenly gone furious, not at CT specifically, but the with a directionless rage that was more or less her default state these days. CT can’t blame her.

“No way we would’ve gotten the objective out if we hadn’t.” CT had made sure of it.

“Bullshit, I sh– we could’ve figured something out.”

The microdrive concealed in CT’s armor, the one she won’t even get to deliver now, feels like it’s tied directly to the sinking weight in her stomach.

“Don’t be such a fucking drama queen, South. I get some shore leave, and you get those leaderboard points.”

“Still fuckin’ sucks that it’s on new year’s,” South grumbles, and CT is incredibly grateful that South doesn’t bother to lie.

“Yeah. It really sucks.”

South sighs, and it comes through as so much static. “So. You gonna go get wasted, or what?”

CT’s surprised into a laugh. “I thought I’d find somewhere quiet to wait it out. Not get fired or shot.”

There’s a long pause, and CT wonders for a second if someone blocked the com frequency, until South asks, “You wanna stay on coms until midnight? Fuckin’ pointless to break a record for something so stupid.”

CT wants South to make this easier, to care more about the leaderboard and less about her.

“I’d really like that.” And with abrupt, unfortunate clarity, CT thinks she may have figured out what this test was about.

She keeps walking, looking for somewhere to wait out the night.


	4. It wasn't supposed to happen like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: It wasn't supposed to happen like that

South was sweaty and jittery with adrenaline from a round of scored sparring matches. She was getting better; she’d thrown Maine over her goddamn shoulder, for fuck’s sake. Yet somehow, the points never seemed to line up right. She rolled her arm, wincing at the creak in her shoulder and half-wishing she’d used the locker room showers, but the last thing she wanted to deal with was insincere, bullshit reassurances under the huge fucking leaderboard. She’d taken off to use the bunk showers, scattering anyone else using the corridors in her wake.

What she had to deal with instead, apparently, was smoke creeping out under the kitchen doors. South slowed as she approached, looking around the empty hallway for whoever was actually supposed to deal with shit being on fire. She wasn’t planning on dying in the middle of space because someone couldn’t turn a fucking toaster off, so she hit the switch to open the doors.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but close to the bottom of the list was an out-of-armor CT waving a dishtowel at a pan.

“I hope you were trying to make,” South stood on her toes to get a better look across the hazy room, “Tar? It’s tar, right?” CT started, actually jumped a little at the sound of South’s voice. The whole inexplicably creating new, vile substances thing must be really distracting.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” CT grumbled, grabbing the pan from the counter and making her way over to the sink. It was already overflowing with suds and dishes, and before South could stop her, CT threw the smoking pan in. There was a hiss and a huge cloud of steam and the sound of something cracking under a sudden temperature change. South had to hold on to the door frame to keep herself upright while she laughed.

“Oh, shut up,” CT pushed past South on her way out of the kitchen.

“Hey, no, come on, it was funny!” South jogged after her. “What the hell were you doing, anyway?”

CT sighed and muttered, “It’s your birthday, you idiot.” She stopped her determined walk and turned when South stopped dead. “I was trying to make you a cake,” CT explained.

“So many fucking questions.” South took off her helmet to run a hand over her face, and could still smell burning on her armor. “Like, how you found out it’s my goddamn birthday.”

“Medical records,” CT said, and South gave her a hard look. 

“Why the fuck were you in my medical records?”

“Can I have a different question?” CT looked so deliberately innocent that South rolled her eyes and bit down on a smile.

“Sure, you can have another question. How do you fuck up a cake that bad?”

“I’m really good with computers,” CT muttered, crossing her arms.

Past the confusion of the whole situation and CT going into her records, South had no idea what to say. CT was scowling at the ceiling, the floor, back toward the still-smoking kitchen, anywhere but at South. But she hadn’t left.

“Thanks,” South said, abruptly. “I haven’t had a birthday cake in a long time.”

CT snorted and raised an eyebrow at South. “Technically, you still haven’t.”

“That’s not the goddamn point.” She didn’t know what the point was, really, but she did know that suddenly, spending her birthday icing her shoulder and obsessing over a fucking points system sounded as shitty as it should.

“Whatever.” She ran a hand through her sweaty hair, and looked off down the hall. “Look, I’m a mess, and you wanna be nowhere near here when the kitchen staff see that shit. I’m gonna shower, and then we’re gonna go get drunk. Think you can get some booze to make up for the thing you’re calling a cake?”

She looked back, and CT was smiling now, running her fingers absently through her own hair.

“I’m also good at finding booze.”

“Great.” South had the weird feeling that she was forgetting to do something. Her muscles, so under her control during a fight, were twinging uncertainly.

She cleared her throat, said, “See you soon,” and took off at a jog for the shower.


	5. Things you said when you thought I was asleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Things you said when you thought I was asleep

“You have to be more careful.” It’s a whisper of lips soft against the unscarred back of her neck. CT’s whole body is heavy, just on the edge of sleep. She doesn’t move while she drags herself closer to consciousness, wondering if she’s drifted into a dream.

But South’s arm is warm and tight around her waist. Their bare legs are tangled together, smooth skin against rough military sheets. CT keeps her breathing slow and even, but feels South’s catch with a jump of her ribs against CT’s back.

“You total asshole.” CT is distantly aware that this shouldn’t be sweet, but her heart picks up at the feeling of South’s words on her skin. “It would be fucking great if you’d be less, y’know, blatantly goddamn treasonous.”

Now CT’s pulse picks up for an entirely different reason. South might be impetuous to a fault, but she’s disarmingly prescient about things worth her attention. CT had been so sure that she would be under South’s radar, with everything from the leaderboard to the AI implantation to distract her. Whenever they train together or sleep in each other’s bunks, South hasn’t talked about anything but leaderboard bullshit, Carolina’s impending breakdown, or missions, not for months. CT stays very still, and feels every place where South’s body is pressed against hers.

“I can’t lose you too,” South trails off, and slides into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Associated headcanon:   
> I’ve always felt like North version of caring as controlling at best, and manipulative at worst (particularly given that he’s a person who chose a career in violent black ops). It’s a very subtle kind of cruelty, and one I think South works hard to avoid in her own relationships.
> 
> As long as Project Freelancer is functioning (as well as an extralegal experimental program set on pitting supersoldiers against each other can be said to ‘function’), South and CT’s relationship works. They kick the shit out of bad guys, take stupid risks, piss off everyone by making out in the lounge and sneaking to each other’s bunks.
> 
> But when things start to go wrong, and CT starts to pull way from the team, South can’t figure out how to handle it. She knows damn well what not to do, not to try and hold on tight or fix CT’s shit for her, no matter how distressing it is to see her coming apart. So she aggressively acts like everything’s fine, like this is all about the leaderboard and staying beside each other. Until she thinks that CT isn’t listening.


End file.
